The White House is making health officials run messaging about the coronavirus through…Mike Pence (TPM):
If you’ve been around for a few days watching the news you certainly know of Dr. Anthony Fauci, head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. He’s been at NIH since 1968 and heading NIAID since 1984. Back in the early years of the AIDS epidemic he was often the guy in terms of getting real, factual information from the federal government. He’s someone who commands immense respect within the field and has a great record of explaining things to the public in a way that is candid, factual and useful.
Now we learn that the White House has apparently instructed Fauci not to speak publicly without prior sign-off from the White House about what he will say. And the person in charge of screening information, the one in charge of what federal officials say and don’t say, is Mike Pence. In a normal administration, some effort to coordinate message and make sure everyone is speaking consistently and clearly would likely make sense. But given what we have seen from the President and the White House so far it seems like a bad sign.
Larry Kudlow, aka, The Human Sharpie, is also on the coronavirus task force, which signals that the main strategy is to tamp down stock market jitters. Speaking of which (CNBC):
US stocks faced another sharp selloff on Thursday as worries about coronavirus mounted, with the three main indexes dragged into correction territory and on track for their worst week since the financial crisis.
The Dow fell up to 960 points Thursday before bouncing back a bit and briefly re-emerging from correction territory. The index has fallen more than 10% below its most-recent peak, putting it in correction, and was down 700 points, or 2.6%, mid-afternoon.
Good thing tomorrow’s not FRIDAY. Oh wait…
Meanwhile, Pence had time today to attend the CPAC asylum and film a public health update for the Hannity show, so it sounds like everything is fine.
Open thread!
MattF
Ahh… Hmm… I wonder… does Pence have to check with both Jared and Ivanka before saying anything?
BruceJ
This is ‘oh my god we’re all gonna die’ ‘The Vogons are coming to put in a space bypass’ territory, isn’t it…let me grab my towel…
Leto
The man responsible for one of the largest HIV outbreaks is in charge of this. We’re all fucked, aren’t we…
Ksmiami
garbage President with garbage supporters- I hope they get destroyed by their own greed and stupidity.
Elizabelle
Message from Deb S on the Shakespeare the cat thread, from this morning.
https://balloon-juice.com/2020/02/26/cat-rescue-reboot-shakespeare-nyc-still-needs-a-new-home/?updated=1582835879#comment-7600420
Jeffro
trumpublicans – all of them – do not give a f*** about anything or anyone except maintaining power.
Worrying about the stock market instead of actual *people*…making Fauci run public health messages by Mike frickin’ Pence first…trying to blame Democrats for fear-mongering in order to ding trumpov…
It’s sick.
Earlier this week I was thinking that perhaps “End The Abuse: vote trump OUT” might be a good bumper sticker for the eventual Dem nominee. Now I’m thinking “Last Chance to Save Ourselves: trump OUT” is better.
debit
@Elizabelle: Thanks for the notice.
Cheryl Rofer
Debbie Birx and Anthony Fauci seem to be the only two on this list that actually know something about how to do this. Additionally, I have seen various names (not recalling if they are on this list) as being in charge of something-or-other along these lines. It looks like Trump is doing his usual and appointing a number of people with similar responsibilities so that they can fight it out for the boss’s favor.
trollhattan
Imagining a Fauci-Pence phone call.
“Mr. vice president, I need to make a statement regarding the efficacy of preventive strategies and alternative measures for healthcare providers in clinical and office settings, as we continue to harvest and evaluate incident data globally.”
Stares into the distance, sternly, and blinks.
“Mr. vice president?”
“What would Jesus do, doctor? Can you answer that?”
trollhattan
@Cheryl Rofer:
Getting a distinct “You’re doing a heckofajob, Brownie” vibe here.
Elizabelle
@debit: I am sorry to hear that Kelsey/Kelpie (??) passed. Had not known.
Smiling now about Walter. Always do.
randy khan
Pence should be checking with Fauci before he says anything, not the other way around.
Leto
@trollhattan:
And MOTHER! Gotta clear it with the boss first.
MattF
@trollhattan: Let us pray.
laura
@Cheryl Rofer: so they are attacking the possible pandemic with political operatives/morand/sycophants/2 medical experts who are gagged/and noted God botheter mike pence. We are truly in perilous times.
Leto
@randy khan: It’ll be a cold day in hell before Pence lets a scientist (liberal/commies, all of them) tell him what to do!
germy
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Cheryl Rofer:
God what a terrible work environment. Ignorant bosses and tons of infighting while responsible for keeping people from dying.
Betty Cracker
@Cheryl Rofer: Oh great, Cuccinelli. Maybe he ponied up for a subscription to the Johns Hopkins pandemic tracking map.
germy
A frown of concern:
Barbara
@Elizabelle: How sad. I wish I could help but I have two very cat averse dogs, both rescues themselves.
Regarding the coronavirus, it is just idiocy to focus on the stock market like this. Larger states are going to start coordinating their own responses. And the thing is, it doesn’t matter what Kudlow thinks or says. Where their own money is involved investment banks and others have no interest in acting as if everything is fine when it isn’t.
jl
Continuing my thoughts from previous thread, made as someone who has done work in economics of infectious disease control (not a doc, not an epidemiologist), there are radically different ways the coronavirus pandemic could play out. Busy now, but will post a link to a very good paper that shows the different scenarios.
As I said, in terms of total social cost, always better to whomp on disease control in very early stages of an epidemic, and aggressively limit effect on spreading disease in every case that is found. If the disease is already circulating in many countries, best approach means permanent public health program of whomping on every case, every small outbreak, forever. Kind of like STD and TB control.
With Trumspter in charge, a danger might be them calling all clear when, say, the epidemic stage of the disease ends, and they move into control of percolating endemic stage. If papers I’ve seen are correct, and control policies in China keep working, that would be in late April or May. Though if Iran lets the thing get out of control, who knows?
Hopefully, a cheap and reliable and quick test, aggressive tracking of contacts, and 2 week individual quarantines will work. But that policy will have to last until get very reliable vaccine that is given to enough people to reach herd immunity (and if this spreads like flu, that will a lot). Otherwise, needs to be a permanent control policy like we have for STDs and TB.
That also means that Azars nutcase idea that a reliable vaccine, when available, shouldn’t be made cheap and universally available, is extremely dangerous.
But, I’m not a doc, not an epidemiologist, and you know about economists being usually wrong but never in doubt.
Anyway, my two cents on best way this could play out. But since we live in the worst possible timeline, the epidemic phase of the disease may look like the problem is going away just as the weather starts getting warm (at least to arrogant ignorant people) , and MD PhD Trump will think his theories are vindicated.
germy
Betty Cracker
Dow is down more than 1K right now. Oof. Shitler has a hate rally is SC tonight. Maybe that’ll help!
trollhattan
@Leto:
I’m picturing Mother ™ perched atop a 55-gallon barrel of Purell, snarling and hissing at anybody who comes near.
Barbara
@germy: Oh yeah, since Maine has very cold winters with lots of low income people (many elderly retirees) living in old drafty houses and trailers, I am sure she is VERY concerned. This is one budget action that won’t disproportionately penalize California.
germy
David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch
Dow down
-1048-1199but, but ……. her emails
trollhattan
@jl:
Isn’t this about the time of year we pick next year’s flu virus variety(ies) to begin the vaccine production for fall distribution? It must be a bucket of laughs being in that particular project right now.
debit
@Elizabelle: Thank you. It was a few months ago and I haven’t been online much. Long story short: my mom has pancreatic cancer, caught early but still stage 4. So life has been a tad busy. I’ve had a rare couple of quiet days, so I’m trying to catch up a little here.
I bought a print to hang in my living, one of those faux adverts with dogs. This one was for Black Dog Mistletoe Company (smooch from a pooch guaranteed) and every time I look at it I see Walter and his toofy smile.
Barbara
@debit: I am really sorry. There is just not much to say. Of the three people I have been close to who died from this dreadful disease, one was very lucky and lived nearly three years after diagnosis. I hope your mom is even luckier.
jl
@trollhattan: I don’t know that much about the timing of flu vaccine production anymore. Been a long time since I’ve done a project on flu.
Edit: anyway, mass production of any vaccine for coronaviurs is at least a year away.
Dan B
@Leto: Fauci doesn’t have a perfect record re AIDS. He took credit for others’ work. That may be a good thing at the moment because he’s notvafraid of an end run around obstacles. The end result for AIDS was the same as if the pioneering heroes got their due.
Cheryl’s assessment seems apt. Jockeying for power seems like a recipe for disaster, see: Climate Crisis / Apocalypse.
BTW Thanks! I’m getting recruitment ads for Air Force. I’m looking for a position as ballast. Any other appropriate openings?
germy
@David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch:
MobiusKlein
Why do pundits refer to downward leaps as ‘corrections’, as if everybody realized at once the prices were too high?
Oh, we just ‘corrected’ the market numbers, all is good. No more corrections here, it’s all taken care of.
Upward flow is just considered normal.
Elizabelle
@debit: Oh no re your mom. I hope she turns out to be one of the statistically improbable types, with a longer life and good quality during.
debit
@Barbara: Well, we had reason for optimism at first. Caught super early when the mass was less than 2 cm, and on the tail end of the pancreas. She white knuckled through the chemo, then just before surgery a second scan revealed a small mass on her liver. Biopsy was malignant, so no surgery, and she decided against additional chemo.
We’ll find out early April how much it’s progressed and how much time she has.
Appreciate the thoughts and goodwill. Cancer can fuck right off.
germy
@Betty Cracker:
He’ll blame Democrats and their friends in the alarmist media.
feebog
Bothell High School, which my niece attends, was shut down today because a teacher at that school has been exposed. Note, the teacher has not tested positive, but his overseas traveling companion has. Abundance of caution and all that, but school closures, event cancellations, travel restrictions and the like are going to be more and more common. And as a country we are not prepared for that.
Mike in NC
Remember the Republican talking point: coronavirus is just another Chinese hoax!
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
Sailing out of my exile for a moment to mention two things:
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@germy:
“Remain calm, all is well!”
MattF
@Betty Cracker: Old Trump tweet on what should happen if the Dow goes down 1000 points in two days:
https://twitter.com/JGHertzler/status/1233051021108301824
No comment, though, on 1200 points in one day.
Morzer
https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2020/feb/27/female-wrestler-wins-state-title-high-school-heaven-fitch
germy
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: They’ll believe everything he tells them. I mean, just look at them. Not the brightest bulbs. They stand their picking their noses and guffawing at his ad libs.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@debit: I’m sorry. Our treatment of cancer is just barbaric. Molly Ivans said she’d had blind dates that were more fun.
satby
@Elizabelle: oh, no. Need to go back to extend my condolences. Thanks for the update.
Barbara
I can’t link to this, but it provides some updated information on testing. CDC has relented on some matters that have prevented localities from testing more people. I deleted some things that have already been commonly reported. Sorry for the length.
Poe Larity
I wonder if Martial Law in the cities will be over by the election.
Dorothy A. Winsor
I live in a condo building for over 55 year olds. I swear our management has done more planning than the administration. If the virus is in the building, they’re talking about self-isolation in units, cancelling community events, converting restaurants to pick and delivery only.
ETA: Also, I’m torn between wanting Trump to suffer from a market crash and the knowledge that we’re retired and live on our investments.
JMG
@MobiusKlein: The implication of “correction” always makes me laugh. You know that money you had yesterday? That was a mistake, you were never supposed to have it. Our bad.
Then there’s volatility. They never use that when the market goes up. It’s their euphemism for “look out below!”
mrmoshpotato
@trollhattan: And she’s brandishing a sword, because why the fuck not.
Roger Moore
The thing that’s truly amazing to me is that they’re doing all this stuff with the election so far away. By November, nobody will remember a blip in the stock market back in February. They will remember if the government does nothing about a brewing pandemic, lies to them about everything being great, and then the whole thing blows up. They genuinely seem to believe they can keep things under control by spinning hard enough without doing anything to affect the underlying reality.
joel hanes
The Trumpies are such idiots, they assume that the marks cannot see the arm reaching into the sock puppet.
The PR-management nothing-to-see-here approach they are taking is, for anyone with eyes to see, precisely the most alarming possible course of action, because it promises that nothing competent or effective will be done to deal with the actual pandemic. The investors and businessmen who can see through the con will prepare accordingly, fleeing to safety. Also, it’s tough to do an effective snow job on the people who can’t get merchandise to sell or widget parts because their supply lines from China and South Korea are not functioning.
You can’t fool all of the people all of the time. The Trumpies will attempt to do so, as a substitute for doing the right thing.
Kraux Pas
Politically correct term to protect the investor class’s delicate feelings.
Unless, of course, the media did in fact know that those stocks were overpriced. But knowing stuff isn’t what the media does these days.
Is this term ever used in the opposite direction?
Leto
@debit: Obligatory, FUCK CANCER! Sending positive thoughts/goodwill to you and your mom.
mrmoshpotato
@David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch: -1199 do I see -1200? -1200. -1250? -1250. Lucky -1300? -1300. Do I see -1400? Sold! -1300 to the stupid orange manchild!
(I have no idea how down in the shitter the market is.)
MattF
@Roger Moore: Well, underlying reality.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@JMG:
The implication of “correction” always makes me laugh. You know that money you had yesterday? That was a mistake, you were never supposed to have it. Our bad.
Then there’s volatility. They never use that when the market goes up. It’s their euphemism for “look out below!”
“investors are worried that…” is another favorite misdirection.
Why not just say “market confidence is down because slick talking white salesmen in expensive suits aren’t nearly as smart as they want you to think they are, and their lousy decisions and greed have been screwing you over for years.”
Duane
@David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch: I finally have something in common with Wall Street investors. I don’t trust Trumpov either.
TS (the original)
@germy:
He already has, the one guarantee with trump – the negatives are always the fault of someone else.
With the coronavirus & the associated stock market fall (economic downturn) the obvious disaster of trump should be clear to anyone with a brain. With his tax cuts and the firing of anyone in the government with expertise to do their jobs, there is no there there to plan or enact a recovery – as was done by President Obama.
Trump will lose the election, President Democrat will resolve the problems prior to the SCOTUS declaring said resolution illegal.
Republicans are killing their country healthwise, politically, economically and environmentally. They will not rest until the job is done.
Baud
@MobiusKlein:
The term for an unreasonable upward flow is “bubble.”
mrmoshpotato
@germy: Yup. Bravo purity ponies.
West of the Rockies
Well, I for one welcome our new viral overlords.
That is what Pence is, yes? That or an animatronic reptilian in a human suit.
mrmoshpotato
@debit: Cancer should be launched into interstellar space.
Martin
Fauci should just ignore that request. He might be fired for it, but that wouldn’t be the worst thing for the public to see. I have a boss but I also have a set of job responsibilities that supercede my boss, and a set of ethical responsibilities to the public that supercede the job responsibilities.
Not the easiest path to navigate, but that’s the job.
Unrelated: saw my first Pete ad here in CA, and also an Amy McGrath ad making a fundraising pitch to the nation to oust McConnell, which is truly doing the lords work.
Betty Cracker
Breaking from Le Post:
This person was an exemplary employee who’s been on the job for many years and received awards under the present regime. But she was contradicting the narrative and had to be punished. Good for her for blowing the damned whistle.
Roger Moore
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:
This is an unfair comparison. It’s a global illness that has killed about 4000 people in about 2 months, and it’s just getting started. It’s already reached the US, and there’s serious doubt about whether we’ll be able to keep it from spreading. If it does spread, it could kill a couple million people here in the USA. That seems like something that justifies a lot of concern.
Barbara
@Kraux Pas: Because the word “correction” reinforces that the market is always right? I have no idea, but it wouldn’t surprise me in the least.
Kraux Pas
What if we accidentally blight another as-yet-unknown civilization?
Betty Cracker
@debit: Damn, that sucks. Fuck cancer.
laura
@debit: Debit. I’m so sorry to hear about your mom. {{{{{HUG}}}}}. I wish you lots of quality time and comfort. You lover of old dogs and cats and peeps you.
Roger Moore
@MattF:
I think Trump and his cronies don’t believe there is such a thing as underlying reality. They’re sure they can change things just by talking enough. Guess what, Don; the coronavirus can’t hear you.
Baud
@debit: Sorry about the news.
Hoodie
@Roger Moore:
Even if your focus was short term and only concerned with money, you’d think the market would more positively respond to a massive government response, even if it looked like an overreaction in hindsight after the epidemic had peaked. Why the hell would you be talking about the cost of vaccines? What’s the market going to look like if there are thousands of elderly people dead and/or overwhelming medical services? If all he cared above was the markets, Trump should be asking himself “What would Mike Bloomberg Do?” He’d throw billions at it as soon as possible.
Martin
This is how fucked we are:
So, the county and state don’t do the tests, because they’re not empowered to do the tests (trust me, we are screaming for the ability to do the tests) and the feds won’t allow us to do the test because we don’t want to accept that a virus might have been transmitted the way that viruses are transmitted, they can only be transmitted by air travel.
Booger
Having Fauci have to go through Pence is like having your dog call 911 for your house fire.
debbie
Jesus, Fauci has been the only voice I’ve found to be honest and reliable.
HumboldtBlue
A couple of hundred years late, but better than never.
A Marine general has banned all Confederate paraphernalia from Marine installations.
And fuck cancer.
Aleta
@debit: ???
chris
mrmoshpotato
@Kraux Pas: Unlikely, but ok, into a black hole with cancer.
That better?
Roger Moore
@Baud:
But nobody wants to call it a bubble until after it’s popped. Until then, it’s just the result of good news or “irrational exuberance” or something. It’s part of the same problem with people assuming the market should always trend upward.
Roger Moore
@Barbara:
Not really. Calling something a correction is implying that the market got it wrong until now. You can see that as a claim that the market is self correcting, or an admission that it isn’t infallible. But calling it a “correction” rather than a more neutral term like “dip” or “decline”, it implies that the price decrease is not some kind of mistake.
debbie
@Jeffro:
Someone put up a yard sign last week which states, “Everybody Sucks; We Are So Screwed 2020.” This house is at an intersection near a grade school. Last election, the yard had a Trump/Pence sign, so I take this guy to be a disgruntled Trump voter.
The language may not be so great for young children, but the more ex-Trumpies, the better for us all.
TS (the original)
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
In exactly the same position – my investments survived 2008 and I believe they will survive again. Panic selling out of those investments simply quickens the fall & removes any chance of recovery.
The US (and the world) need to know what trump has done. He has wiped all that the last administration did to rebuild the economy. He has turned neighbors against each other. He favors those that have it all & gives them more. He has split families asunder. That he survived 3 years is beyond sanity – now we are finding out that he cannot survive any type of a crisis. It needed to happen.
mrmoshpotato
Not voting in 2016 – to tell Hillary to fuck off and to possibly contract coronavirus.
(chef’s kiss)
mrmoshpotato
@debbie: It could’ve said Fuck All This Shit: We’re So Fucking Fucked 2020.
?
debbie
@germy:
This is what Eric S. was just lobbying for in D.C. ?
chopper
@feebog:
japan is talking about canceling all school, country wide, for like a month.
satby
@debit: oh debit, so much on your plate. Keeping you and your mom in my thoughts.
gvg
@chopper: Oh my…..does Japan still have more stay at home moms? Because that would really by difficult here…and I would presume something like that would close daycares too. That would really hurt our working poor and middle class.
Duane
@Martin: If people didn’t like this timeline before, welcome to today. I’m old enough to remember when the federal government could be relied on in an emergency, say back when Obama was president.
debbie
@debit:
So very sorry to read this, and I am hoping your mother proves the statistics to be ludicrous.
Roger Moore
@Hoodie:
I am stuck with the idea that Trump really thinks the whole thing is a plot against him, and showing it’s a plot is the most important part of doing something about it.
trollhattan
@chopper: Tokyo 2020 games are under scrutiny as well.
FTFNYT Link
debbie
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:
“It’s just another disgusting Democrat plot!”
LuciaMia
Heard Pope Francis feeling under the weather, after a large Ash Wednesday meet-and-greet. The Vatican isnt saying what it is, but of course thats exactly where your mind goes.
debbie
@MattF:
I still don’t understand why that fat fuck thinks Twitter is so good and he is so excellent at using it. Like Navarro says, there is a tweet for every single thing.
Served
A fun thing to remember is during the 2008 crisis when Republicans defeated the bailout/TARP the first time and caused an even bigger crash/panic.
Barbara
@Martin: Per my very long comment above, CDC is going to permit states to do their own testing. I assume that this case is one reason why. They might be able to make CDC shut up, but there is a good chance that means reporters will move on to state authorities who are under no such obligation.
trollhattan
@Roger Moore:
Dawn is a plot against him.
“Why is the sun always showing up there? I’m bored by that and I want it to show up there! [Jabs index finger at Lincoln Memorial] Mulvaney!”
Subsole
@Kraux Pas:
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:
“If we use soft words and neutral tones maybe people won’t wise up and start stampeding for the exits”.
Y’know, one of those subliminal messaging things.
Best just to ignore it.
Orange Is The New White
@germy: Ran what you posted through Google Translate and this is what came out:
The need to provide additional funding to fight the coronavirus is urgent, but transferring money from the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP) is the wrong approach and would kill any chance I have at re-election.
— Sen. Susan Collins (@SenatorCollins) February 27, 2020
Martin
@Hoodie: So, the markets may be reading this a bit differently. If this hits pandemic status, you’re talking about a more-or-less global travel shutdown. Basically you’ve busted every supply chain on the planet, and there aren’t enough billions the Feds can dump into this to solve that.
Additionally, I’ll note the perverse opportunity here. You generally only get revolutionary economic change when there is massive crisis. If this breaks out in the US in a big way, you’re likely going to see a health care system pushed to its breaking point. We’re seeing it now with the lack of testing kits, and the ‘we’re going to stick to market capitalism for the vaccine’ completely neglecting that an inelastic market is going to fucking break everything. If the feds mandate treatment breaking everyone’s actuarial models and networks, you’re going to see massive government bailouts of the health care industry. At that point, you’re doing single payer by crisis and once you’ve broken the existing system, it gets a lot more appealing to the public to simply maintain the single payer system. That’s basically how it got implemented across europe.
Dan B
@Roger Moore: It seems like the Trump White House believes that keeping things under wraps and stifling the media will calm the public. Do they recall how rumors spread most rapidly? Do they believe that Ostriches with their heads in the sand are a real thing, or thst those ostriches are calm?
And when will Cuccinelli and Stephen “Skeletor” Miller (or Lightbulb Head) start locking patients up in (Summer) camps? It seems like the only trick they’ve got up their sleeves. Every foreign threat is “invisible rabid smallpox” that will “dirty” the worthy*.
*Can we go out on a limb and postulate their brutal toilet training as potentially causative for their relentless horror of “the foreign”?
Roger Moore
@TS (the original):
Trying to time the market is a dangerous game, which is why financial planners recommend regular portfolio rebalancing and a gradual shift from equities to fixed income investments as you approach retirement. That said, even with the big sell-offs for the past few days, the markets are still ahead of where they were a year ago, so this isn’t a time to panic.
mrmoshpotato
RIGGED!
Subsole
@Roger Moore:
Question: Is the problem that the virus is uniquly hard to counter, or is the primary worry the staggering incompetence of our current regime?
Put another way, if this were the GOOD timeline and we weren’t degenerating into a sixth-world shithole, how much trouble would we be in?
Martin
@Barbara: They always intended to let states do their own testing. Next problem – how do we get workable testing kits?
I’ll note that logistics are one of the things that the US is a global expert at. Rapid manufacturing ramp is one of the things we’re terrible at. Anyone who needs to do this talks to China, because they’re experts at it, but oh, wait, I see a problem here. They’re largely shut down. So how do we make millions of test kits? And is there anyone at the federal level who can coordinate distribution of them?
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:
I don’t blame them. It’s a disease that appears to be just as infectious as influenza and 7 orders of magnitude as deadly to those that get it, with older people dying at greater rates.
Imagine if this spreads widely. Even if 5% of those cases become serious, that could be a lot of people needing ICU level care. We simply wouldn’t have the capacity to treat all those needing it, not to mention those already requiring intensive care. Many ICU units run at 70% capacity now
debbie
@David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch:
About 3,200 points in three days.
Kent
Ummmmm, some work still left to do in that area: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._Army_installations_named_for_Confederate_soldiers
debit
Thank you, everyone. There’s a reason why this is the first place I come back to after an internet hiatus. <3
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Subsole:
Look to other developed nations and their responses. South Korea has handled this fairly well. So has Singapore. Yet new cases are still appearing every day, albeit slowed. I do wonder if there was ever a snowball’s chance in hell of containing this virus. I suppose if Wuhan city and Hubei province officials hadn’t tried to cover it up at first, maybe there might’ve been a possiblity
Barbara
@Martin: It probably helped that most of the existing health care infrastructure, both physical and social, was utterly destroyed, if not by WWI then by WWII.
Captain C
“He would strike down your sorry, dissembling ass, that’s what he’d do!”
Roger Moore
@Subsole:
As I understand it, the big problem is that we’re basically a completely naive population with respect to this virus. Nobody has an existing immunity to it, so it can theoretically spread to the entire population. It also has a moderately high mortality rate, so it has the potential to kill a lot of people. It has a few other nasty tricks up its sleeve, like people being able to spread it before they show any symptoms, but the total lack of established immunity is the really big thing.
Martin
@Subsole: Both.
If this were 2012, we’d have widespread testing and plans being communicated. So the early detection and containment part would actually be working. I suspect the case in NorCal demonstrates that we’ve missed that window.
The broader containment problem is a legal/cultural problem. Chinese citizens are well trained to do what the government tells them. They can prevent travel from cities, and they have a massive force to enforce such things – their military and police are relatively well coordinated and can be used for this. Legally, this is a problem for the US. Can we shut down travel in and out of a city? Would the public respect such an order? Have we so damaged our trust in government that people would see it as a proper response and not some Jade Helm fantasy bullshit? I have a hard time envisioning a culture which tolerates the sovereign citizens and the whole spectrum between them and normal americans from complying with such a set of instructions. And how do you enforce it? How do you coordinate state, local, and national guard to lock an area down? If someone challenges a checkpoint, given the odds that they are also armed, what does this look like in practice?
mrmoshpotato
@Dan B:
Fixed. And why do you hate Skeletor?
Barbara
@Subsole: Here is how to think about it. The virus is new to us (probably not new to the world), and in order to treat it, contain it, whatever, the more we know about it the better off we will be. Deliberately not testing people is how we lose the opportunity to understand how many people are symptomless, how many people are actually going to need significant intervention and so on. In addition, of course, to permitting its silent spread so that, presto, it’s a huge problem that we all of a sudden have to deal with, and yet, not having anything like the information we could have.
Barbara
@Martin: That’s what the article conveyed. So just read it. They are going to allow testing using the current kits.
Martin
@Barbara: Oh, certainly, but bombing is functionally not different from bankruptcy. In either case the government needs to step in, and once the public accepts that step, you’ve tackled the first big step to transitioning to single payer. You’re then going to actively be building out the logistics and infrastructure of it, further weakening the existing system.
Orange Is The New White
Oh, they have fucked up so hard here. No message coordination. And this time it’s gonna hurt ’em.
Fox has been beating the shit out of this. Terrorizing all those old, angry folks with nothing but Chinese Death Virus 24/7. Gonna kill us all!
And now everything’s OK.
Well, those old people sure love them their fear, and you can’t just take it away from them like that.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
Hedge-fund Managers maybe many unpleasant things, but gullible idiots isn’t one of them. They aren’t going to like BS.
TS (the original)
@Roger Moore:
This used to work when fixed income investments returned more than 1-2 %. Today they do not return enough to generate a liveable income (billionaires excluded). My retirement fund is in a balanced option – with equities at least 50%. This isn’t going to change unless the world of fixed interest recovers to above 5%. The mortgage I had in the 1980s peaked at 18% – and standard bank deposits were returning 12-15%. Those times are long gone.
Citizen Alan
@HumboldtBlue: I bet Trump fires him.
Captain C
@germy: She should add: “Not that I’d ever do anything about it.”
Martin
@Roger Moore: It’s not that it’s transmissible before showing systems, as earlier reported. It’s that mild cases are mild enough that you can completely suppress the symptoms with OTC medication – advil to knock down the fever, etc. making it appear the individual is asymptomatic. They banned the sale of such medicine in Wuhan so they wouldn’t get false negative tests.
Good luck doing that in the US.
mrmoshpotato
@Orange Is The New White: Sometimes I wonder why Faux News isn’t just Boones Farm Jeanine on a 24/7 loop yelling “Booga booga! Everything is going to kill you!”
debbie
@Cheryl Rofer:
Harrumph. Only one woman, but she seems to be one of the more qualified members.
Subsole
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
Thanks. I’m having a hard time picturing what anyone could have done once it broke out of China and got into the global transit nets.
I understand a similar dynamic might be at work over in Iran and India: officials trying to bury/whitewash it so as to avoid a panic and, of course, making it worse.
Maybe they could take a page from Wall Street, say the population level is experiencing a “correction”…
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Martin:
Arrest them. If they resist, then deadly force is permitted, especially if they’re armed. Try to de-escalate as much as possible, of course, but possibly thousands or tens of thousands of people’s lives are on the line
Emergency powers and martial law are there for a reason. A deadly epidemic is the perfect scenario for them
Sure Lurkalot
@debit: I just lost my eldest sister to colon cancer. Yes, cancer, please fuck right off.
Mary G
@debit: Fuck fucking cancer sideways with a chainsaw. I also missed that Kelpie had passed away. She had a great last part of life with you.
Holding you and your mom in the light.
Captain C
Trump is the anti-Truman, to wit: “the buck stops anywhere but here”
Subsole
@Orange Is The New White:
As a 40 year native of Texas, I am continually amazed at the flexibility of the Faux Noise audience’s mind.
Seriously. These folks can hold three mutually contradictory thoughts simultaneously without even slowing down. Shit’s wild.
Dan B
@West of the Rockies: Pence called Mike Dense while in the congress.
Pence approval rating in Indiana 11%. Rescued from obscurity by Trump.
Explains fawning?
Might also explain current Market confidence.
NotMax
@Captain C
Cue John McCutcheon.
mrmoshpotato
@Subsole: It’s why Driftglass calls them “reprogrammable meatbags.”
Kent
BS as in anything emitting from the Trump Administration. Or BS as in Bernie Sanders?
Or maybe both?
Mary G
Headlines on CNN Money right now:
I can just see Twitler on the phone screaming at CEOs to stop saying this shit – those ungrateful SOBs made a fortune off my tax cut bill and this is how they repay me! IT’S NOT FAAAAAIR!
Martin
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): I agree, but look at how we handled Malheur and similar events. Look at the attitudes inside ICE, and how variable these actions are without strong coordination and oversight. I don’t see it going well.
Hoodie
@Martin: I wouldn’t be surprised that Trump’s attitude will be
“Fuck it, we’re all going to get sick anyway, 2% fatality rate isn’t that bad, and most of the dead will be poor folks who are a drain on the system anyway. Most people will get a few sniffles, and the ones that don’t will be dead anyway, so we can bamboozle the survivors on Fox and say, see, it was just a Democrat plot to make me look bad. We saved all that money on vaccines and other measures and now we all have immunity anyway. Sooner or later the institutional players in the markets will get the deal, quit panicking and even make a few bucks on buying opportunities.”
It would be consistent with his attitude about climate change, and it’s the kind of break a few eggs sociopathy I’d expect from the likes of Stephen Miller.
Dan B
@Martin: Airborne transmission can only happen in coach. Viruses cannot be transmitted in First Class because viruses can only afford coach*.
*Same is true for private jets and yachts**.
**Please refrain from reminding people about the help,… I mean Staff!
Captain C
@debbie: I’m old enough that I can remember when the Dow was closing around 3200.
Subsole
Thanks everyone for the answers. Not any kind of expert, so trying to get my head around it all.
Deffo don’t see emergency powers working out down here in the land of Jade Helm. Then again, I wonder if people wouldn’t automagically respect such orders from a Republican admin – I assume the media would, at least.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@Kraux Pas:
I did my part when this started by gently suggesting that my wife shift her 401K to money markets. She believes the money scavengers and will ride it out.
JPL
@Elizabelle: Yup . Debit will always be a saint in my eyes.
Mary G
VeniceRiley
Welp. I’m about to schedule my first out of country vacation since 2007. Flight prices to Heathrow have not shown a price drop at all. heading over on 3/27 probably lave 4/10. In between, I am supposed to go to Anne Lister Birthday Week activities in Halifax. hundreds are going from all over.
Anyone have flight booking and travel advice for me? (I mean other than frequent hand sanitizer and not touching my face) Do I need the fancy respirator masks I have seen on Amazon $288 for a 10 pack?
Dan B
@gvg: Au contraire! The uppers would suffer because you know how trying it is to have to insist the nanny wear all the protective gear and sterilize all three homes*, get tested asap, and not leave the Penthouse or the “house” in the Hamptons until all this is past us.
*and her home, but see also, “Not leaving the Penthouse or “house”…
Subsole
@mrmoshpotato:
Oh that’s good. I’m keeping that.
Martin
@Mary G: US industries are very efficient. When things are good, that’s good. But efficiency often undermines resiliency. It might be prudent to have two manufacturers on different continents so that if one is affected by a disaster, you have one unaffected. But maintaining two requires more coordination and will be more expensive so it’s nominally less efficient.
That’s why the US is bad at rapid manufacturing ramps. We decide to ramp and then start to think about factories and hiring, and maybe 2 years later you have that in place. China has the factory already built, waiting for someone to move in. You can get a factory up and running and hired in weeks. But that idle factory is inefficient. The surplus labor and tooling and all that is inefficient. But, it’s very effective and beneficial for growth.
But we’re about to get a very punishing lesson in the benefits of global trade.
John Revolta
@Hoodie:
Azar: Mr. President, I’m not saying we wouldn’t get our hair mussed. But I do say no more than ten to twenty million killed, tops! Uh, depending on the breaks.
Trumpf: HAIR MUSSED??!?!?!?!!?
mali muso
@VeniceRiley: according to my colleagues in public health, the masks are pretty useless for prevention in terms of getting exposed and are really there for those who actually have the virus to cut down on how much they can spread it. Sort of like security theatre, looks like you’re doing something but it’s not actually helping. Hand washing seems to be the big ticket thing.
Dan B
@Orange Is The New White: Susan BFC and Bernie agreeing!?!?! The Timeline is through the unicorn rainbow and over the looking glass!
*Brow Furrow Concern
Jeffro
@debbie: that’s good, I’ll take it, but it is still kind of both-sides-y
only one side sucks. We have plenty of good candidates
mrmoshpotato
@VeniceRiley:
Enjoy the paint cans of mummified chicken fajitas? Go to 19:38.
Amir Khalid
@Captain C:
I remember what a big deal it was when the Dow first climbed past 1,000.
cain
@debbie:
Which is why he won’t be staying very long. It is almost a surety that he is going to be let go.
Mike in DC
Idlib is about to become the absolute center of undivided global attention, folks. A very large container of natural fertilizer has struck the giant wind turbine. Just check the news is what I’m saying. I expect Adam will cover it later.
Elizabelle
@Dan B:
B for Ballast. LOL. To the skies!
Dan B
@debit: So glad you feel welcome here. A friend of ours may be on her way out from f*****g c****r. It’s more distress on top of the Orange Threat. A group of people who are ready to squabble abiut differences but whose first rule is living by their humanity and compassion is a solid place to hang out.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@mali muso:
Nursing student here. If you’re talking about the surgical masks that have been seen in China, you’re right. Outside of healthcare, they’re fairly useless at prevention. Studies have shown they work in healthcare settings fairly well. They’re used routinely at the hospital I do clinicals at with isolation patients on droplet precautions. They’re also useful for those already sick who don’t want to spread a disease to others.
However, the N95 respirators are absolutely effective at reducing the risk of infection from droplets/aerosols. The unit I go to has already stocked up on N95s
Dan B
@mrmoshpotato: Our former warmongering Senator Slade Gorton was Skeltor. (Also from the New England fish people, why so thin?) Saw him at movies a coupke times – horrid, with that “I love children roasted in napalm, tasty!” smirk, excuse for smile.
Wanna know how I really feel?
mrmoshpotato
@Dan B: LMAO
J R in WV
@debit:
So sorry for your mom’s situation.
l lost a beloved cousin I grew up with to ovarian cancer last fall, a year younger than I. We were really close back then.
Cancer sucks !!!
J R in WV
@Kent:
Kent, The U S Army is NOT the Marine Corps, and never has been. I was a swabbie, and we had jarheads on board for security while in port. We got along OK, too. Long time ago.
But my point is the same. I don’t know for a fact that no/few Marine establishments are named for Traitor confederates, but I suspect it is so.
Ruckus
@Roger Moore:
They of course know how to do nothing about the underlying reality. Hell they may not even know what underlying reality means. It’s hard to tell what they don’t know as that list is by far the biggest list in their lives. Because other than bullshitting everyone, they have nothing. They know if their bank balance is up or down, maybe. If conservatives make money it’s either by grift, theft or screwing everyone they come in contact with.
Ruckus
@TS (the original):
The worst part is that they think they are making it better. Every time it gets worse, they get thrown out, it gets better, they sell more crap to voters about how bad it is, get reelected, fuck up worse than the last time, rinse/repeat. Except that they have hopefully hit rock bottom with trump, because there is a better than zero chance he will destroy the country with his idiocy. And I can’t imagine anyone worse than trump.
Ruckus
@debit:
All the best for your mom and you.
Out of the five people in my immediate family 3 of us have had cancers, one has passed from it. She had no health care insurance.
So for and from all of us here or past – FUCK CANCER.